I begrudgingly admit that looks pretty great for a six year old console.

Thanks TLM though the hard part about "just talking to you guys" is I can't ask a question about a feature or strategy that I do not yet know exists...

So asked for videos and such in the hopes I'd find a few that provided some "oh hey I didn't know you could do that" moments.

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Go back a page or two or go to battlefieldo.com and watch the 56 minute interview. What they talk about does not line up with the video, but both provide more details about the game including video of the Javelin, footage of at least 2 maps, details about differences between beta and final, and small things if you pay attention. Example, damaging a take with a torch has a flame while fixing it has a blue wielding spark. If you are attacking a tank with the repair tool it is very obvious when the pilot bailed.

Today, DICE pleased our pre release hunger with another amazing trailer. Unlike previous Multiplayer trailers, this one shows a lot of variety to what this game will offer. It was only through taking screen captures and pausing at millisecond glimpses that we were able to grab some new details from the trailer.

RHIB Boats, LCAC Hovercrafts, Aircraft Carrier, Amphibious APC’s
It’s been too long since we’ve been able to play Battlefield and have a all out water war with jets strafing your boats. Looks like Battlefield 3 has delivered.

Littlebird Scout Helicopter has 4 positions.
As a squad gets ready to make a 500m jump off the cliff in Damavand Peaks, you can clearly see that the littlebird has 4 positions with the Super Huey transport helicopter next to it with 5 positions.

Humvee .50 cal gunner is no longer exposed
Remember the days when you would get sniped out of the Humvee gunner position but you had no idea because the view was bouncing around too much? Well it looks like now the Humvee .50 Cal position will actually be exactly like it is in the APC’s and Tanks.

Building collapses. Destruction 2.0 baby!
From the Alpha and Beta builds of Battlefield 3, many had doubts about the destruction engine in battlefield 3. In the ending half of the multiplayer trailer, you can clearly see a building collapsing from the Tank shell. We feel bad for whoever was caught in the rubble.

Night time combat for Ninjas
For those who played the beta and wondered why the game had Thermal Scopes, looks like DICE did it for a reason. Tehran Highway immerses you into a urban settings under the cover of night.

It’s Back to Karkand!
The Battlefield 3 BF2 Expansion pack is starting to shape up. Strike at Karkand looks even better then the original.

For those of you looking to see more details from the trailers. Here is a batch of screenshots. We are getting pumped for this game!

Two weeks ago, we announced that the Xbox 360 Version of Battlefield 3 would be released with a “High Def” texture package. A lot of questions were raised, but thanks to gamerzines interview with Patrick Bach, we now know that the game, when run off the 360 disk, will not look as good as if it were installed on your HDD. What’s this mean? It means that if you do not have enough space on your hard drive (arcade version or >6gigs of space) you’ll be able to play the game, but it will not fulfill its full visual potential as if it were installed.

“There’s nothing magic about it,” said Bach. “It’s the same thing we do for PC and PS3, so there’s nothing extra.

“I think the controversy about this is that we actually let you do it on 360 for once. So what it does is it gives you the same abilities, kind of, as the PC and PS3. You can actually stream information from the hard drive.

“That’s new for Xbox 360, but it’s not a new idea for the gaming industry as a whole. No one has really tried to do it properly, so us doing it will create question marks. ”

GamerZine: But does installing the texture pack actually make a noticeable difference to the game? Bach certainly thinks so.

“It does make a difference, yes, absolutely. The whole engine is based around streaming textures, streaming terrain and a lot of other content.

“The thing with the 360 is that you need to be able to give consumers a game where you don’t have to install it on a hard drive, because there are 360s without a hard drive. So we need to give you the option of installing it, rather than just demanding it. You could call it a ‘standard-def’ version for the 360 if you don’t have

GamerZine: According to Bach though, it isn’t the Frostbite 2 engine that demands the use of streaming tech.

“It’s not the engine that demands it, but that it has the ability to create a more detailed experience. We can’t use more memory of the actual machine itself, we need to flush that memory with new information depending on where you are in the game.

“What we let you do is let you have high-res information that gets streamed in and out of memory at all times, and that gives you a more detailed, varied and vivid experience on all platforms. We don’t want to take that away from 360 players.

“We’re really trying to push the limits of what we can do on the consoles and the PC. Our goal is to see how we can utilise as many of the systems that you actually have in your machine that some people haven’t utilised before. Some (developers) just do it like, if it doesn’t fit into memory we just make a lesser game. We don’t do that. For us, it’s about how we can give you the most game ever even though the hardware is over five years old.”

Gamespot and other notable game sites received an email recently with some news that could delay your day one game of Battlefield 3. The email states that BF3 will be receiving a day one patch that will fix various bugs, add features, and help to make sure the game is "polished." This patch will take effect on all three platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3. No size estimates or what changes this patch will actually bring. The email sent to these companies from EA can be seen below:

Copies are set to arrive on Tuesday because there is a Day 1 update. DICE are perfectionists -- they will not stop polishing the game until it is in your hands. The Day 1 update incorporates real-time feedback from the beta, ensuring that the consumer experience on launch day is outstanding. It is the actual consumer experience that we wish to be reviewed. The game with the Day 1 update will be available for review on Oct. 25.

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"The Day 1 update incorporates real-time feedback from the beta." Kevin O'Leary pointed out that beta fixes were still being incorporated, so this is nothing to be surprised about. The PC patch will be distributed via Origin, PS3 and Xbox 360 users will receive the Battlefield 3 patch through their respective marketplaces (free).

GameTrailers interviewed Kevin O'Leary of EA on the Battlefield 3 beta to final fixes. Various fixes have made it into the game that will fix a whole list of bugs that were prominent in the beta. The main issues have already been addressed and as the Battlefield 3 release date closes in, bugs and issues are still being ironed out: "a lot of the smaller fixes." Branching off that statement, O'Leary states that the beta we played earlier this month, is now a two month old build. Those who played the beta said that the Battlefield 3 build presented this weekend at the GeForce LAN 6 event was leaps and bounds ahead of the beta. You can watch the interview below.

Wednesday, 19 October, 2011 at 12:02 PST | ^Scott^ | Print News
A ton of Battlefield 3 Xbox 360 screens (93 to be exact) have popped up on a Korean website. The screenshots might look familiar since a lot we have seen from many of the trailers.

FYI. New drivers will be released the day before Battlefield 3 launches. Make sure to grab them especially if you will be purchasing Battlefield 3 as there are numerous bug fixes and better performance as well. For those who have modded the latest Quadro driver (http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-tesla-win7-winvista-64bit- 285.58-whql-driver.html) it is very close to the final driver but is missing a few Battlefield 3 fixes so if you do download and mod them, make sure to update to the newest Geforce drivers next week. The Quadro driver does contain the fix we've added to address the TDR issue.

Deploying the EOD bot: Like the MAV (Micro Air Vehicle), there are three important things to keep in mind.

1. Your character is exposed and unprotected while in use. If you have squad mates have 1 stay behind with you for protection or ensure you are in a well hidden area. If you are like me and use the MAV as Recon for quick intel gather for your squad, then quickly is the key. I spot a few people as my squad moves up. Once they control an area, I shut the MAV down and move in with them.

2. EOD and MAV can only be deploy on a level, unobstructed surface. This means no hills, no bushes, no tessellated surfaces. It does seem to work if the surface is tilted and flat. The best way to spot where you can use it is to watch the color of the bot outline. If you can use it the color will change from yellow to green. Once it is green, right mouse click to deploy.

3. You only get one, but you can turn it off. While you are controlling the EOD or MAV, you can simply press "E" to turn off the remote control and move around. This does not destroy either. I am not sure if the MAV will simply float to the ground as I always took time to land it out of sight before turning it off. I am not sure if you keep the same bot if you are kill and respawn (Haru can answer this I believe). This should be noted as you can deploy the bot, move into a better hiding location such as a bush or area you couldn't deploy the bots, then return to controlling them with LMouse with the remote out.

Mortar use: This seems to be straight forward. Like the bots it needs to be deployed on a flat surface. Once out, your map will auto expand. You can then use the movement keys to move around the map with your target sight. As red markers appear, you simply fire with LMouse to laugh a volley. I have not personally used them, but this is the information given from 3 different sources at the Nvidia LAN thingy. The explosion is big, but slow with long reloads. Primary use would be dispersing clusters of people hiding in one spot (aka crowd control) on defense, and offensively used to take out stationary targets and clear the way from the rest of your forward moving squad.

SOFLAM: I have no idea, but I have a niggling feeling it is just the Mortar strike from Bad Company complete with binoculars. I believe it will use the red dot as a laser targeting system which means using it on people will likely give your position away. This is a guess though.

P.S. The Platoon has a 99 man limit, so we may need multiple platoons for everyone. Source

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in the beta, if you were killed while the EOD bot was deployed, you would be able to access that EOD bot upon respawn, use it and then have another one (that you spawned with) when it is destroyed. I would assume this is a glitch though, and will likely be fixed for release.

No surprise here on a Day 1 patch. And why is it a big deal unless your connection sucks?

I may still end up with a retail copy as there is a Gamestop within walking distance of my house and I remembered still get Karkland and PWP too from those jerkholes. Haven't decided yet for sure but I'm playing on the 25th one way or another, damnit.

It’s Back to Karkand!
The Battlefield 3 BF2 Expansion pack is starting to shape up. Strike at Karkand looks even better then the original.

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Jesus, could you imagine if Strike at Karkand looked even worse than the original? Fires would be lit.

The real question with this Day 1 patch is this: With pre-loading set to begin this Friday, will Origin auto-download and integrate the patch during pre-load or will it not even be available until the ACTUAL Day 1... thus resulting in the server hammering they were trying to avoid with the pre-loading in the first place?

Whatever happens, they'd better not fuck it up. Origin already has a (justifiably) big target on its back as it is...

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So essentially what I'm looking for in order to see you all on the field next Tuesday are two things:

1) Experienced advice on pre-ordering BF3 in certain special circumstances, see below.
2) What, in this community's opinion is the best BF3 pre-order online at the moment.

So I was one of the holdouts waiting for a possible BF3 pre-order option on Steam, but it seems if I don't buy it online today or tomorrow, I'll miss out on the goods so I'm throwing in the Valve embroidered towel.

My situation is I live in Canada, and some of you in the U.S. may have noticed a deal on Amazon.com that was 30% off for the pre-order goodies of Back To Karkand and some Dogtag pack. It's currently at 15% or thereabouts off now, and I'm currently thinking of getting it.

Now consider this. Being in Canada, I have no idea if I can purchase this or if it'll redirect me to Amazon.ca or something. Subsequently, since this is digital distribution, I have to consider a bunch of possible bullshit EA endgames, like Amazon tying your purchase automatically to U.S. Origin accounts via your email address, or the CD-Key Amazon gives you being region-locked to the U.S., or even just the very real possibility that Origin is quarter-baked and will fuck something up.

So again, I'm looking for a bit of advice here. If I'm in Canada, can I buy some digital download deal using a Canadian CC on the American website, without any worries? Is the Amazon BF3 key to Origin what a Steamworks game is to Steam, that is, I can buy a key from anywhere and install it on any platform internationally? Has anyone bought a digital download from Amazon.com who doesn't live in the U.S. and can share their experience/nightmare with me? Is there any region-locking idiocy I should be wary of, buying this from .com?

Or does anyone know a kick ass deal I can get for Canada that stomps all these other deals?
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day 1 patch is fixes from the beta? shouldnt they have been included already?

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Don't see how for disc copies. Games usually "go gold" about a month before release. Beta was too close to launch where I assume the game had already gone gold, so those disc copies will be getting the fixes since they were made before the beta even ended.

Don't see how for disc copies. Games usually "go gold" about a month before release. Beta was too close to launch where I assume the game had already gone gold, so those disc copies will be getting the fixes since they were made before the beta even ended.

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it just seems to me that the beta should have been done earlier, so that less patching was required at launch.